Jonah Bixby was not your average twelve year-old. He spent more time in police stations than most career criminals. And although he had just started middle school, Jonah was single-handedly responsible for bringing more than a few of those career criminals to justice. But let's start at the beginning....

Jonah's mother and his father had both been police detectives in the city's Major Crimes Division, solving murders and assaults and high-profile robberies. It was while working there that they met and fell in love, then got married and had a son.

When Jonah was only five, his father was killed in the line of duty. At that point, Carol Bixby could have retired from the force. But she didn't. She stayed busy with the most important job she knew, law enforcement. And that's how young Jonah became the unofficial mascot of the Beaverton Police Department.

From the first grade on, Jonah would get out of school each day, walk across the street to the Fifth Precinct, and wait until his mother got off her shift. Carol's fellow officers took turns keeping an eye on him. Detective Massey from the Fraud Squad helped young Jonah with his math homework while Sergeant Gonzales tutored him in Spanish.

Jonah was blessed with an inquisitive mind and an eye for detail. And his love for police work came naturally. Before long, he was making deductions even the best officers on the force couldn't come up with and whispering them to his mother. Little did the other detectives know that many of Detective Bixby's toughest crimes were being solved by her preteen son.

"No. Not until the other car pulled up and the guy got out. He was wearing a ski mask. I tried to get back in my car, but he was too fast. He pulled a knife, like a hunting knife, and demanded the deposit bag."

"You shouldn't have resisted," Carol said. "You could have been killed."

The owner winced and nodded. "I guess it was just instinct. I swung the bag at him. But somehow he managed to stab me." He pointed to his right thigh. His pants were torn in a bloody slit, and under the slit was a flesh wound, perfectly centered with the slashed fabric.

"Anyway," he continued, "I fell down screaming with pain. The guy took the bag and ran off."

"What did you do then?" Carol asked.

"I got to my car and grabbed a towel from the floor." He pointed to a hand towel, folded neatly in quarters, with a splotch of blood covering the right half. "Then I called 911 on my cell phone. Look, can I go to the hospital now and get this wound looked at?"

"No, I don't think so," Carol said and smiled.

The art gallery owner, otherwise known as Detective Peter Pauling, smiled back, then stood up and faced the one-way mirror. "All right, rookies. You've just seen an interview with yours truly as a robbery victim. What's your first impression?"

In the observation room on the other side of the glass, four rookie detectives sat in chairs, taking notes. Detectives Pauling and Bixby had found that this kind of class was the best way to teach observation techniques.

"You lied," said one rookie. "You robbed your own store."

"Good," Detective Pauling said. "And what makes you say that?"

A second rookie raised his hand, before realizing they couldn't see him. "The towel, sir. If you'd taken it from your car, it wouldn't have been neatly folded. You obviously prepped the towel, getting it ready before stabbing yourself in the leg."

"Excellent," said Carol Bixby to the mirror. "Anything else?"

The third rookie spoke up. "It's a big coincidence, saying this robbery occurred on the same day as a big cash deposit. Also, it seems kind of odd getting stabbed in the leg like that."

"Also, there were no other witnesses," said the fourth.

"That's good, but it's circumstantial. Anything more concrete?" There was nothing but silence from the four rookies.

"Come on, guys," said Carol impatiently. "I have a twelve-year-old son who's more observant than that. Jonah!" she called out. "I'm sure you saw it. Why don't you tell these officers what they missed?"

The four rookies turned and for the first time noticed a twelve-year-old boy sitting in the rear of the observation room in the shadows.

Jonah didn't like being put on the spot. True, he had been paying close attention. These play-acting sessions were always fun. But someday he knew his mother would put him on the spot and he wouldn't have the answer.

Today wasn't that day.

Jonah put aside his geography homework and walked toward the mirror. "Mr. Pauling," he said into, one of the microphones. "Can you show us exactly how you were stabbed?"

Detective Pauling walked up to the mirror. He bent over his pant leg and showed them the bloody hole. Behind the torn fabric was just a glimpse of the fake wound. Most of it was higher up on his leg. The rookies all noted the difference.

"When a person stands up, his pants move lower down on the leg," Jonah explained. "That wound was obviously made when you were sitting down. It was self-inflicted."

"Perfect," said Detective Pauling as he sat back down in the folding chair. Once again, the bloody gash became aligned with the hole in his pants, and he reached in and tore off the fake plastic wound.

The whodunit above was provided by American mystery fiction author Hy Conrad.

In addition to his work in mystery and crime puzzles, Hy was also one of the original writers for the groundbreaking TV series Monk.

Also, if he was in the process of trying to get in the car when he got stabbed, how is the wound on his RIGHT thigh? It would have been fairly protected (up against the car) and the robber would have had to reach clear across his body to get at his right thigh, but his left thigh would have been exposed (unless this happened in England of course...)